Joshua Halpern of Secaucus keeps county first singles tennis crown; St. Peter's Prep takes 3 of other 4 matches

A year after breaking through as Hudson County's top singles player, Secaucus' Joshua Halpern yesterday reaffirmed his status atop the local tennis scene.

Halpern won his second consecutive Hudson County first singles title, dispatching Bayonne's Andro Mossad 6-1, 6-2, at the Hudson County Individual Boys Tennis Championships at the St. Peter's College Tennis Bubble in Jersey City.

"As a senior it feels great. It feels great just to get it, because I'm a senior. But there's no pressure," Halpern said. "I had no pressure going into this. I just played my game and felt relaxed the whole time."

Halpern (19-1) earned last year's title by beating Aakash Shah of St. Peter's Prep in the finals. That breakthrough came a year after losing to Memorial's David Garzon in the 2010 championship match as a sophomore.

"It just feels good that I even got that with Garzon. He showed me what it was going to be like," Halpern said. "I learned from it."

Yesterday, the Secaucus ace played one of his best matches of the season and took advantage of a number of unforced errors Mossad committed.

With a 3-0 lead in the first set, Halpern exchanged a volley of hard-hit, deep shots with Mossad before striking a deftly placed drop shot that his Bayonne counterpart couldn't get to. After the point, Halpern let out one of his many celebratory growls and took a commanding 4-0 lead on the next point.

In the second set, Halpern again assumed a 3-0 lead in games, but after Mossad claimed the seventh game to pull within 5-2, the Secaucus senior closed out the match with a strong final game.

"My teammates, they were cheering me on, pumping me up," Halpern said. "Realistically, I did not double fault once the whole entire match. He didn't break serve the whole entire match. I placed every ball really well, and I think that's a big key."

While Halpern reasserted his first singles dominance, it was St. Peter's Prep that claimed three of the four other matches played at the indoor venue yesterday.Jay Malik notched the second singles crown by topping North Bergen's Paolo Oquendo, 6-0, 6-4, while Aaron Joskowitz gutted out a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory over Bayonne's Joshua Octaviano.